


Snow White & Sky Blue

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: (it's just Shaw, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, does he even count?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mother MacTaggert raises two mutant infants left to die in the forest, Shaw is an evil dwarf, and Erik is a bear. (An XMFC version of the fairy tale <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_Rose_Red">"Snow White and Rose Red"</a>.)</p><p>Written for <a href="http://xmen-tales.livejournal.com/">X-Men Fairy Tales</a>.</p><p>Art by the darling <a href="http://aristo-kitty.tumblr.com">AristoKitty</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow White & Sky Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [白雪和蓝天](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671736) by [Go_MrCactus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go_MrCactus/pseuds/Go_MrCactus)



Once upon a time, there was a poor widow who lived alone in the forest, surviving on the coins men gave her to hunt and chop wood on her land. All the men called her Mother MacTaggert.

One day in the deep white winter, Mother MacTaggert was walking home from the market in the village, and she found two babies bundled together under a tree. They had been left to die in the forest because they were mutants. The baby girl had skin as blue as the sky on a summer afternoon, hair red as blood and eyes that shone like gold coins. The baby boy's skin was as white as the snow they lay in, showing no sign that he was different than other children – but Mother MacTaggert could feel his mind touching hers, feel his hunger and cold and sadness as if they were own, and knew that made him a mutant as well.

Mother MacTaggert cared more for their hunger and need than for their strangeness; she took both babies home to raise as her own. The little boy she called Snow White, and the little girl Sky Blue.

Snow White and Sky Blue grew happy and strong in the care of their adopted mother. Snow White was sweet-mannered and shy, preferring the quiet of books to the loud minds of company, while Sky Blue loved to run and laugh and discover every new thing with her own hands. Though they were so different, the brother and sister went everywhere hand and hand. Together they kept Mother MacTaggert's cottage clean and beautiful, gathered her fruits and berries, and more than anything else, brought joy to her life with their smiles and happy voices. So the years passed, and Snow White and Sky Blue began slowly to grow from a boy and girl into a man and woman.

One night in the deep white winter, when the wind screamed and the snow blew, there came a knock at Mother MacTaggert's door. It was rare to receive a visitor in the deep forest, rarer still on such a night, and Sky Blue and Mother MacTaggert were frightened. But Snow White said, "Let them in, they are cold and need shelter from the storm."

They opened the door, and saw not men there but bears, two hulking, furry, sharp-toothed bears, waiting to be let in from the cold.

Again they were afraid, but Snow White assured them that the bears meant no harm, so he and Sky Blue quickly made room for them by the fire, and even beat the snow from their fur to help them grow warm.

"Thank you," said the smaller bear, who was a very strange-looking creature indeed. His fur was a color not far different than Sky Blue's skin, and in truth he seemed as much cat as bear, with the eyes and voice of a man.

"Why, you are not an animal at all, are you?" said Sky Blue. "You are a mutant, like us."

"I am," the blue bear said. "And I think the same is true of my companion, for he has the wisdom of a man, though the growls of a bear, and cannot speak. We have traveled together these three years. I call him Bruno."

"And what is your own name?"

"I have none, for I have lived alone in the forest since I was but a tiny child."

Sky Blue and Mother MacTaggert brought warm milk for their guests, while Snow White sat before the larger bear, who was brown and shaggy, his form showing no sign that he was other than bear. He growled and snapped, but Snow White was not afraid. He knew the bear's heart, knew that it was only pain and sadness that made him mean-tempered. All night Snow White sat with Bruno, and stroked his fur, and fed him from his own plate. Sky Blue sat and talked with the blue bear, whom she called Herzig, because he was shy and sweet. They slept there by the fire, the four of them curled together for warmth, and were as happy as they had ever been.

After that, Bruno and Herzig came to Mother MacTaggert's cottage every night, sometimes bringing nuts or wood or a brace of rabbits to eat. As winter melted away, they brought honey and wild fruit, and slept outside in the warm breeze – still with Snow White and Sky Blue curled close to their sides.

Bruno grew less snappish, and confided much to Snow White, spending every moment that he could with the kind, smiling young man. Only Snow White knew that Bruno had once been a man, a young king, until the evil dwarf Sebastian stole his jeweled crown, and trapped him in the form of a bear when he tried to pursue. Bruno longed to have revenge; anger burned hotly inside him at all times, and he thought only Sebastian's death could slake it. Again and again Snow White tried to convince him that killing would not bring him peace, but Bruno would not be persuaded.

The five of them lived together in happy friendship all that summer, and the winter again; another year, then another. Snow White and Sky Blue were a man and woman grown, now, but they would not hear of leaving Mother MacTaggert, nor Bruno and Herzig, alone in the forest.

One day in the sweet-smelling autumn, when the trees looked like fire though the wind carried ice, Snow White and Sky Blue were picking wild apples when they heard the roar of an enraged bear. Through the bushes a wide-eyed dwarf came scrambling, frantic with fear, and Snow White knew at once that it was Sebastian, and that Bruno ran hot on his trail, and would kill him if he could.

"You must help me!" the dwarf cried.

"Yes," said Snow White, for though it pained him deeply to give aid to his friend's enemy, he would not be party to murder. "Hide here in our apple bucket until the bear has gone."

Just before Bruno came into sight, they covered the dwarf over in apples, and their sweet scent hid him from Bruno's nose, even if he had thought to suspect his friends of hiding him. Soon Bruno left again, angry and grieving that Sebastian had escaped.

Snow White and Sky Blue turned to free Sebastian from his hiding place – only to find that he, and their apples, and the bucket holding them, all were gone. Far from thanking them for their aid, the evil dwarf had stolen from those who saved his life.

The next day, Snow White and Sky Blue were walking to the market in the village, carrying a basket of eggs to sell and a few coins to buy bread. Again they heard the roar of the bear, and again the dwarf crossed their path, and on catching sight of them demanded aid.

"Help you indeed," said Sky Blue, "after the way we suffered for it last time!"

"I will return all, and more for your pains," Sebastian said, "if only you will help me! Have some pity; this bear would tear me limb from limb!"

Before they could find a way to hide the dwarf, Bruno was upon them, and failed in a killing strike only because Snow White stepped between them.

"I cannot move aside, my friend," he said, while Bruno roared and clawed the earth, betrayal in his eyes. "You know I cannot do it. The dwarf will come with us to the village, where you cannot go – and thence on his way, never to show his face here again. Even this ungrateful thief may yet have good in him, and I will not stand by and let him be killed. I pray you will forgive me."

Sebastian clung to his leg for safety, and they walked away, leaving Bruno to cry out in powerless rage.

They arrived at the village, and Snow White turned to tell the dwarf to go – only to find him gone already, and with him the basket of eggs, and their tiny purse of coins.

All that winter, Bruno kept his anger hot against Snow White, refusing the gentle touches he used to savor, refusing too the shelter of his house, even in the coldest storm. Snow White wept and pleaded, as did Sky Blue and Herzig, but to no avail.

But spring came, softening the hard edges of winter, and with it Bruno's rage. Soon he and Snow White found their friendship restored, stronger than ever before, and Snow White spent every night curled against the warmth of his strong bearish heart.

Spring warmed the hearts of Sky Blue and Herzig as well, in a way they had not felt before, and they made plans to be married.

"My bear-brother will be lost to me," Bruno said to Snow White, through the power of Snow White's mutation. "I will be alone in the forest."

"Never," Snow White swore to him. "You will never be alone, so long as I live. I love you no less than my sister and your brother love one another, and I know you are the same, for all your tempers. Make me a ring from this coin, and I will wear it always, as a token of the promise between us, never to leave each other."

Bruno, who had been a mutant before his bear-curse, waved one massive paw, and the copper coin stretched itself into a ring around Snow White's finger.

All was well, then, until one day, just as the tender green of spring was deepening into the bolder green of summer, when Snow White and Sky Blue were gathering flowers for her wedding wreath. They could hardly speak for surprise, when once again the foolish, ungrateful dwarf appeared, at the far edge of the meadow, with Bruno galloping on his heels.

"Indeed you should not kill me, sir!" the dwarf cried. "Only I know how to return you to your true form!"

Reluctant and growling, Bruno stayed his paw, and waited for the dwarf to speak.

"You must let me live," Sebastian said, "I must be living for the cure to work. You must let me live and, and..." He hemmed and hawed, and then caught sight of Snow White and Sky Blue. "Ah, yes! And you must eat the soft, sweet hearts of two virgins, one a maid and one a youth! Just like those very ones there! Go on, now you have the secret had you not rather do it as soon as possible?"

Bruno snarled, and only Snow White could hear what he wished to say – that he had rather remain a bear until the last day of eternity than do such a thing. With a thunderous crash of one fiercely-clawed paw, the dwarf was no more.

And therein lay the true secret of the curse's breaking, for with the death of the spell's caster, it lost its power entirely. The bear's skin split down the middle, and from it rose a handsome young man in rich robes of scarlet and purple.

  


Stepping out of the bear-skin, the young man approached the dead dwarf, and picked up his rucksack, all full of stolen riches. From it he drew a jeweled crown, which he placed on his head.

"Do not fear me, I beg you," he said, turning toward Snow White and Sky Blue, who stood as statues in the midst of the meadow. "I am the same friend you have loved these three years and more, restored to my true form. I am Erik Longhands, King of the North Country, and I love you both as much as ever."

Snow White ran to him then, weeping for joy, and threw his arms around him. Sky Blue followed close behind.

 

King Erik of the North Country was welcomed home to his kingdom with great rejoicing. By royal proclamation, he declared Herzig a prince and his own younger brother, and gave Mother MacTaggert all the honors his own late mother had enjoyed. Snow White he made a duke, and his own dearest advisor, and it was rare indeed to see one without the other. Neither ever married, all their love and devotion being spent on each other, so it was Herzig and and Sky Blue's eldest son, the night-blue and velvet-furred Prince Kurt, who next inherited the throne. His first act as king was to erect grand and beautiful statues of Snow White and Sky Blue, that all might remember how the simple kindness of two children toward a bear saved their kingdom.

~THE END~


End file.
